GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

with a cross through it against Chris Grayling’s name, isn’t it? It must have

been a joy working with him, Ian, and all your colleagues, but that is really

pleasing and it is really great that even this Government, even this

Government, have seen that, that it is such a disaster.

The other thing I just briefly want to mention is one of our new affiliates. The

Pharmacists Union – Paul is here somewhere, there he is over there – had a

great victory in getting a recognition from Boots who had a kind of sweetheart

union deal for many years, I believe, and that is a really good victory for a

relatively new union, so congratulations on that, Paul, and we will look forward

to hearing a bit more about that later on.

Before we get down to the formal business, I just need to point out a couple of

corrections, we may get more as we go through. One correction and one

notice. Motion 9 you will find behind the light blue tab in the booklet which is

the motions and it is page 9, it is NAPO (4). It is actually duplicated from

another motion and you are going to get an extra sheet, probably tomorrow to

replace that motion. There is one missing. There has just been an error there

with duplication. Also Motion 2 at the beginning of this section from the Artists

Union England has been withdrawn, so we will not be hearing that motion.

That is all the housekeeping as far as the conference goes at the moment so I

think we can actually now refer to the agenda.

I am going to welcome all our guests. Let me just go through in the order I

have got here. First of all, welcome to Jane Norman who is sitting at the front

here who is going to take the verbatim minutes, so think of her when you

launch into moving your motions or whatever. Thank you very much to the

staff that have been working on this for ages, Ian sitting at the back, I cannot

see Claire at the moment, but she is around, she was outside, so thank you

and well done on all the organisation for this. A special guest who is with us for

the duration of the conference and will be speaking to us in the international

debate is Osman Baydemir who is over there . He was a Turkish MP and is

representing the Kurdish people. The GFTU has done a lot in this area and we

will be having a full report later. You are very welcome, Osman, nice to see

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